Good Bye Nakashima Furniture

The family Nakashima Furniture goes to auction! It was a very sad day in the Walter Family Household yesterday. In the process of putting my mother into assisted living it became necessary to “dispose” of her fine collection of George Nakashima furniture that she has had since 1964. I have written about this furniture in a previous blog post and how it inspired me to create the Butterfly Spline router bit.

I can still remember being a little boy growing up in New Jersey, when we went for a car ride one Saturday with my parents over to Mr. Nakashima’s barn to help select an unusual piece of wood that would later be made into one of the most unique coffee tables the world has very seen.

Now I am writing this to you from my mom’s apartment. I am sitting at a portable card table. The room is bare. It reminds me of when you sell a car that you put 100,000 miles on. You think of all the good trips you had.

I think of all the great family dinners we had around the trestle table or the “cocktail hours” we had sitting on the couch eating cheese and crackers from the top of the coffee table. Mom was reminding me how as a boy my brothers and I use to get a kick out pitching a tennis ball through the big open hole in it. And then the grandkids picked that up as well.

The furniture went to Briggs Auction company www.briggsauction.com and will be auctioned off on May 20th. The bidders and final proud owners will surely appreciate not only the furniture but the original signed drawings that George made of each piece along with the original bill of sales. Truly collector’s items. We have been told that they expect about 600 people to attend. I hope to be there as well.

Over the years, many of you have written to me about your Nakashima pieces. You may want to check out their web site and see how these pieces fare.

It’s funny how pieces of furniture can be seen as good old friends of the family.